Astral proves resilience as maize prices offer fillip
Drought and record high feed prices sabotage profit, but poultry producer expects rest of the year to be better
The drought may have decimated Astral’s interim earnings, but market commentators are optimistic about the firm’s outlook. The poultry producer and animal feed supplier reported a 54% drop in headline earnings for the six months to March. CEO Chris Schutte said that while the drop in earnings was "nothing to be proud of", the company had proved its resilience in a difficult trading period. "If we analyse the conditions that we had to operate in, we have cause to celebrate. "We thought the drop in earnings would be much worse but we did a couple of things, in-house to shield us and it worked," he said. Astral said poultry feed prices reached a record high over the period, increasing an average 16.8% from the year-earlier period. To negate the higher feed costs, Astral said it improved its broiler-production efficiencies. Schutte said the next six months could be better. Vunani Securities food producers analyst Anthony Clark said Astral could enjoy a considerable rebound in profit fro...
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